What Happens After Dark

by Jasmine Haynes

  Well, hell, Erin was the one who had to explain away how badly she’d treated Bree. Back before year-end, she’d known something was wrong, but Bree was so tight-lipped. And Erin, well, she’d completely misinterpreted and because of the whole patent infringement problem they were having at the time, she’d said things she didn’t mean. That’s when Bree confessed that her father was dying.

  It had been like a brick to the head.

  Erin hadn’t offered enough empathy then, but she was damn well going to offer Bree anything she could now. “You don’t need to come in at all. We’ll manage.”

  Bree gasped. “It’s year-end reporting time. There’s so much to do. And the IRS audit.”

  “Just send Marbury your spreadsheets. He can handle it. That’s what we pay him for.”

  Bree gave a rapid left-right look as if she was searching for answers in her peripheral vision. “I’ll explain whatever he can’t understand.”

  “And show Rachel how to enter the cash receipts and match up the vendor invoices.” Erin tapped her head with two fingers. Stupid. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.”

  Bree flexed her fingers and rolled her lips between her teeth as if she were trapping everything inside.

  “It’s all right, Bree, let us help you.”

  Erin counted the seconds that Bree stared at the stapler on her desk. Ten. It seemed a very long time. “I appreciate it.” Then finally she looked at Erin. “But I need to come in for a little while every day. Please let me.”

  Duh, Erin should have understood right away. Bree didn’t need the work. She needed a break from home for a few hours. Things had been so different for Erin. She’d lost Jay in the blink of an eye. She didn’t know how she’d have felt or what she’d have done if she’d known it was coming. And he was just a little boy. Bree’s father was at the end of his life. The emotions were poles apart. She would never think of Jay without the ache of loss, but over the past couple of months, Dominic had helped her remember the joy of her son, too. And she’d needed that joy.

  What Bree was dealing with wasn’t the same. “You come in whenever you want,” Erin said softly. “And you leave when you need to. At a moment’s notice.”

  Bree’s eyes glimmered with something, not quite tears, but a shimmer of emotion. “I’ll get everything done, I promise.”

  “I know you will. You’re the best accountant I’ve ever had. I have complete faith in you.” Erin felt a twinge in her gut about that one moment when she hadn’t shown complete faith. But that had been more about herself, her own emotions at the time, and not really about Bree at all.

  “Thank you, Erin.”

  For once, Erin felt like she’d said the right thing. Bree was so quick to find fault with herself. She needed to be told she was okay. Sometimes Erin simply forgot that.

  8

  BREE’S HEAD ACHED WITH AN INCESSANT POUNDING AT HER TEMPLES. It was Monday morning and last night, she and her mother had once again eased the tribulations of the day with a couple of glasses of wine. She should have drunk more water before she went to sleep. Or taken an aspirin. Instead, Luke had called her. She’d come. It had been mind-numbing, exactly what she needed. It could only have been better if he’d been standing at the foot of her bed watching. She’d appreciated that he didn’t ask questions, that he told her eloquently and explicitly how good she was, how special. Precious.

  But that was last night, and this was today. She’d forced herself to talk with Erin, and Erin was fine about her shortened hours. The rain had stopped, and the sun had begun heating the office through the window that overlooked the parking lot. The leaves of her philodendron seemed almost iridescent in the sunlight. She’d coaxed it from a six-inch pot to a massive growth of greenery that hung down in vines from the top of the bookshelf. Somehow taking care of that plant soothed her in dark moments. She couldn’t quite believe she’d made it blossom into this lushly gorgeous foliage that practically took over the office. It was the one thing she seemed to have done right.

  “How’s your mom doing?” Rachel asked. They were seated at Bree’s desk, Rachel in front of the computer. As Erin had dictated, Bree was teaching Rachel the ins-and-outs of invoice matching and cash receipts.

  Rachel was DKG’s receptionist, pretty, blonde, four inches shorter than Bree, two cup sizes bigger, divorced, and a single mother of two teenage boys. Except that her husband had dual custody. Did that mean she wasn’t a single mom since the kids’ dad got them every other week? Bree wasn’t sure how that worked.

  “My mother is stoic,” Bree said.

  Which didn’t necessarily mean her mom was okay, but Rachel took it that way. “I’m sure she’s glad you’re there to help.”

  Bree dipped her head, letting her hair fall across her face. She’d just had virtually the same conversation with Erin, and dammit, she’d come across as a diarrhea mouth. What was all that about her dad being so proud of her? The words just seemed to tumble out. All right, she’d wanted Erin to forget all the other things she’d said before about not wanting to go home to take care of her father. Because that sounded so bad, like she was an ingrate.

  Erin had been supportive, suggesting Rachel help out. Yet the moment Erin offered, Bree had wanted to shout; no, no, no, she needed those routine tasks herself. They relaxed her, they were easy, and she felt like she’d accomplished something.

  She had to admit, though, it would help for now. There was shipping, receiving, cash receipts, and purchase order documentation in the system. Bree could double-check Rachel’s work from her parents’ home. Rachel was smart, eager to learn something different and take on new responsibilities.

  Except that Bree didn’t like asking for anything from anyone because then she’d feel beholden to them with few ways to ever pay them back.

  She had to stop thinking about that. Erin had made the decision, and here they were. The problem was that Rachel always wanted to make sure everyone was okay. She liked to talk, though she didn’t spread rumors or gossip. If you told her something in confidence, it didn’t go any further. She’d known Bree’s father was ill before Bree even told Erin. It had happened during one of those moments of stress when Bree hadn’t been able to hold back, when she’d lost control for a very short tick of time. Rachel was there to see the chink, and that seemed to make her feel she had a license to talk. And that Bree would want to talk back.

  Bree could have talked, if she was a different type of person. She’d given a few details to Erin, but she could have gone further and told Rachel about the big, kind man who’d brought the hospital bed yesterday morning, his gentle, soothing Southern ac-centh that sounded like a melody. How he’d set the bed up right in front of the window because he wanted her father to feel the sun on his body during the day. How easy it had seemed for him to carry her father to it, and how meekly her father had accepted. Bree had watched from the far side of the bedroom so she didn’t have see out the window. When the man was done, Bree had followed him back out to his truck like a puppy wagging its tail, dying for attention, unwilling to let him go, needing that contact, even from a stranger, someone who had helped. She’d almost cried when he drove away and she was alone again with her mother and her dying father.

  But Bree wouldn’t tell Rachel all that. Instead she said, “Yes, at least my mom’s not alone anymore.”

  “Except for right now, and here I am pestering you with questions when you should be showing me stuff so you can get back home.”

  Bree felt a little blip of guilt in her belly. “I didn’t mean it that way.” The truth was she didn’t want to rush things because then she’d have to go back too soon.

  “I know you didn’t.” Rachel pointed at her chest. “I did. So you were telling me about the POs.”

  Bree pushed back from the desk and rose to tap the top drawer of the filing cabinet. “Purchase orders, receiving documents, and supplier invoices all go in here. You match the purchase order with the receiver, then with the invoice when you get
it. I also put a copy of the check it’s paid on in the vendor file as well. You follow the same procedure with receivables.” She tapped the next drawer down. “Customer order matched to shipper matched to invoice, then a copy of the check they pay us on.” She sat again.

  “It sounds pretty simple.”

  “It is. You’ll be fine. Let’s do a few matchings in the system so you get the hang of it.” Bree pushed a vendor invoice in front of Rachel who was already seated at the keyboard. “Open the accounts payable module, and I’ll show you how to see the open receivers. You can search by vendor or purchase order.”

  Together they went through first the vendor invoices, then customer invoices and cash receipts for both wire transfers and checks. Rachel filed everything, then filled out the deposit slip for the physical checks that had to go to the bank. Rachel usually did the bank runs anyway.

  “Wow,” she said, sitting back and smiling. “I didn’t make too many mistakes.”

  “It’s a piece of cake once you get used to the system.” It was all mindless work that Bree liked to do late in the afternoon when she was tired. “It’s only a problem when a customer or vendor doesn’t reference the PO or the part number or they don’t put what invoices they’re paying on a check, crap like that.”

  “And you do all this stuff yourself?”

  Bree gave her a look. “Yeah.”

  “But you’re an accountant. This is all clerical.”

  “I’m just a bookkeeper really.” It wasn’t like DKG had money to throw around. Erin did grunt work, too; they all did.

  “But you have a degree in accounting.” Rachel wasn’t letting up, staring at Bree wide-eyed. “You shouldn’t be wasting your time on clerical duties.”

  She made it sound like Bree devalued herself. Or was Rachel buttering her up?

  Rachel’s eyes suddenly lit with enthusiasm. “I bet Erin has tons of important stuff she needs you to do instead of inputting invoices. I do all her filing. And Yvonne’s, too.” Yvonne Colbert was their inside sales manager. “Sometimes Erin has me input purchase orders, too. Let me talk to her and see if I can take over some of this stuff for you on a regular basis.”

  For a moment, Bree felt a stab of terror, as if giving away even her simplest tasks made her less valuable, less needed. Yet she could hear her father’s voice. “I spent all that money on a college education just so you could be a peon at some two-bit company run by a couple of flakes who don’t know they’re asses from a hole in the ground? You don’t have a hope in hell of ever making a hundred K.”

  Bree swallowed with difficulty. Erin and Dominic weren’t flakes. They’d built DKG from nothing; now their gross revenue was over five million. But Bree’s father was right; she hadn’t done much with her career. She wasn’t a controller. She wasn’t even a supervisor. She was a peon.

  Something must have shown on her face because Rachel jumped in. “Only if you want me to help out, Bree. I just remember that sometimes you stay late or come in on the weekends.”

  Or she worked from home. She was salaried and didn’t get paid for extra hours. Not that Erin made her do a lot of overtime. But with the IRS audit coming up, she didn’t know how she’d get everything done.

  “Besides,” Rachel went on as if she were making a sales pitch, “I can add accounts payable and accounts receivable experience to my resume. You’d be doing me a favor.” Rachel was so eager about everything; she got an idea and she ran with it, like she was fearless. Bree always had to think, weigh the consequences, make sure she wasn’t making a mistake. Except about sex. But then a person was never careful when it came to addictions.

  “Then you’d be overloaded,” Bree said, cutting off that last thought. Maybe handing off the matching to Rachel was a good idea. There was other stuff that needed doing, like reviewing the fixed assets, especially with the IRS looking at everything. The tax books were complicated, different from regular reporting with all the asset classes, lives, conventions, and depreciation methods like MACRS and AMT.

  “On occasion, I have to ask Erin to search for things for me to do,” Rachel continued the pitch. “Besides, I get paid for overtime if she authorizes it.”

  Rachel wanted the experience. What would be wrong with that? It wasn’t like Bree would be taking advantage. She was always so worried about paying people back for what they did for her; well, here was a way to give something back to Rachel.

  What if Rachel did a better job—and at cheaper pay—and Erin didn’t need Bree anymore? The thought hit her like a low blow. God, she had to stop thinking like that all the time. She wasn’t completely useless. She had value. I’m good enough, I’m good enough. It was a mantra she had to keep repeating to herself, and she still didn’t always believe it. But Erin wouldn’t fire her. Bree would make herself indispensable with other stuff, like taking care of the IRS with Marbury and not having to get Erin involved at all. Then, finally, everything would get back to normal when her father was dead.

  Jesus. That was harsh. She swallowed, and even her saliva hurt going down.

  “So what do you think, Bree? Is it a good idea?” Rachel asked.

  Stop thinking bad thoughts, stop thinking.

  “Yeah,” she finally said. “We’ll talk to Erin together.”

  Rachel smiled as if a beam of sunlight had lit her face. “Thanks. You won’t regret it.” With that, she turned the situation around as if Bree had truly done her the favor.

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, BREE STARED AT THE PHONE LIKE IT WAS a snake ready to jump on her. Not that snakes could jump, but she’d had nightmares in which they did.

  Rachel had taken all the matching back to her desk, and when she was done, Bree would check it. She was sure there wouldn’t be anything wrong.

  Now she had to call Marbury. No more excuses. His receptionist answered and put Bree through. It was pathetic the way her heart pounded in her chest. Marbury was just their accountant; that was all. He couldn’t hurt her or anything.

  “Marbury here.” His voice boomed deeply and forced her to hold the receiver away from her ear.

  The sound made her grit her teeth. “Hi, Mr. Marbury, it’s Bree Mason.”

  “Bree,” he singsonged loudly. “Erin told me she got my list. Having problems with it already?” He laughed. It wasn’t a nice sound.

  “No. I wanted to tell you I’m emailing the files. All the information you need is in the spreadsheets.” She held her breath. He’d find something wrong with the idea, she was sure.

  “Well, now, Bree, that means we’re going to have to print everything out over here and that’s going to cost some extra time to have Clarice do it.” Clarice was his receptionist. She never looked all that busy when Bree stopped by to drop something off. “And time is money,” he added.

  “Erin says she’s not worried about that. It’ll save us the time.” Us. The all-important client. Marbury always acted as if he were the customer. At least he did when he talked to Bree, though not so much with Erin.

  “I’m sure there are pages we don’t need to see, Bree. We’d be wasting all that time,” he emphasized. “Why don’t you print out what you think we need and drop it by. I’m sure that would be easier for everyone concerned, don’t you?” He said it with what she thought of as the idiot inflection. As if she was too stupid to know it and needed a reminder. “And cheaper,” he added as the kicker.

  She gritted her teeth. Dammit. His office was actually on the way to her parents. It was smarter to print out the appropriate pages because, double damn, he was right, he didn’t need everything in the files. Bree should have suggested that to Erin. But yet again, Denton Marbury had pointed out her failings.

  9

  BREE SPENT ANOTHER HALF HOUR PRINTING WHAT MARBURY would need. By then it was a quarter to two, and she took off since she’d told her mom she would leave work by two-thirty anyway.

  She was there in five minutes. Marbury’s office sat atop a row of small shops that included a dry cleaner, an insurance company, a hair salon, and
a Chinese restaurant. The scent of cooking oil and spices followed her up the stairs. Her stomach growled; she’d forgotten lunch. She didn’t tell people that sometimes she forgot to eat. In a world where just about everyone was dieting, the few times she’d said anything about forgetting a meal, people looked at her like she was an alien. Then they got hostile, as if she were holier than thou and trying to make them feel bad. But where some people turned to food when they were stressed, she was the opposite; food made her sick. That was another thing she didn’t tell people.

  The outer office consisted of Clarice seated at a very big desk with her computer monitor, keyboard, and phone all within reach, and a host of office machines lining the walls, including a combination printer with scanner, fax, and copier, a color printer for presentations, and of course a coffeemaker and large refrigerator. Denton Marbury was a large man.

  The high-speed printer was spitting out documents while Clarice talked on the phone’s headset and tapped on the keyboard. She’d fashioned her honey blonde hair into a ponytail on the crown of her head. At close to fifty, she seemed a bit old for ponytails, but she’d once confided to Bree that a tight ponytail was cheaper for stretching out the wrinkles than cosmetic surgery. And it seemed to work for her.

  She held up a finger to keep Bree for a moment, her polish the most amazing neon orange that actually seemed to glow. Marbury was closeted in his office. Whenever Bree had an appointment with him, he always made her wait, sometimes only a few minutes, but always long enough to show his superiority.

  But with his office door closed, escape might very well be hers. Bree merely waggled the manila envelope of documents, mouthed “I’ll leave them,” then slid the package onto the edge of Clarice’s desk.

  She almost made it out the door.

  “Bree.” The deafening voice raised her hackles. Even when Denton Marbury was trying to whisper, he boomed. The sound matched his body. He was six-foot-three and wide like an ex–football player who’d stopped pumping iron long ago. Because he was tall, she didn’t think of him as fat; she wasn’t even sure he was, there was just so much meat to him. He wore a light brown shirt, brown tie, and brown pants, and all the unrelenting brown seemed to amplify the bulge of his belly.